Learn how to establish a market for each item, so you can price your inventory to move fast, at the highest price possible.
Understand the market in real time and price to make more money
Establish the “market” for each line item.
Each SKU represents its own mini-market. Treat it as such. As an example, we find that there are often differences in demand across colors. Once you have visibility into the market for each color, you can price and counter offer accordingly. Higher demand colors should get higher counter offers. Don’t worry about your pricing looking inconsistent. Price to the market. If you don't, you are leaving money on the table.
Colors are a quirk of this business
Certain colors are less desirable than others. In some cases, a large buyer may put in a “take all” price across numerous colors. Smaller buyers may try to cherry pick the more desirable colors. If you clear offers from the smaller buyers first, the larger buyer with lower offers might end up with less desirable colors, and may pull out of the deal.
This is why it is so important to establish a market for each line item. In the above example, it's OK if you clear the more desirable colors at a higher price. This premium will offset any decrease in price that you may have to offer to the larger buyer to keep him/her happy.
We learned this lesson the hard way
Price based on customer behavior, not what you think the price should be.
In the preowned mobile device business, there is no tricking the market. While there are temporary inefficiencies, if you go against the market, you typically lose.
When you're pricing and clearing offers, click the Lightning Bolt icon to see the price on most of your offers, and booked and sold items. This will help you understand the market price.
If most offers are far from your list price or below your low price, then you'll probably need to adjust the price.
Pay special attention to these metrics
Tips on interpreting Estimated Days to Sell and Days Inventory.
Pay special attention to the Estimated Days to Sell and Days Inventory metrics when you think about Pricing and Offer Clearing.
- Set a target for these numbers and stick to them. If these numbers start creeping up, you will likely need to adjust your pricing bands.
- When interpreting high Estimated Days to Sell and Days Inventory numbers, you need to determine whether these devices were just put into stock or have been sitting there for a while. Check the Added metric in the Inventory section for the last 7 days. If a large quantity of devices was just added, you can discount the Estimated Days to Sell and Days Inventory metrics until you have a few more days of data.
Another important factor to consider when interpreting metrics is whether you have the “Include out of Stock” switch on or off. If you include your out of stock items, your metrics will look better because you will be including items that you just sold out of.
You may want to look at the metrics both ways so that you can see how you are selling overall versus how you are trending with the items that are still in stock.
Use Advanced Filters to find devices that have a high Estimated Days to Sell and a low Added percentage. These devices are definitely moving slow.
Your mentality has to stay with the market. The market moves week to week, so a price that was good last week may not be good this week. PhoneX allows you to see these market moves in real time. It's counterintuitive, but sometimes reducing prices faster helps you make more money in the long run. If you don’t do it, you might be selling your devices even lower next week.
Pricing page features to know
Special Pricing/Discounting
Special Pricing allows you to segment your customers so that they see the relevant pricing discounts applicable to them. We support up to three special pricing tiers. When your customer signs in, they'll see the their "Specials" with the list price crossed off and their discounted price.
Bulk Pricing Imports and Adjustments
Prices can be easily be modified in bulk via the import or through bulk adjustments.
- Use the import to update pricing at a detailed level across your SKUs.
- Use the bulk adjustments feature to adjust prices up or down by a percentage or dollar amount.
Manager Approval
The pricing module can be configured as an approval workflow where one person is allowed to draft changes to prices while another person approves those changes and publishes them. These controls allows separation of duties if you need it.